“As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”

“As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man-There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:-That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins"From "The Gods of the Copybook Headings”

“War is an ill thing, as I surely know. But 'twould be an ill world for weaponless dreamers if evil men were not now and then slain.”

“... and when the moon gets up and night comes, he is the Cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to him. Then he goes out to the Wet Wild Woods or up the Wet Wild Trees or on the Wet Wild Roofs, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone.”

“They believed us and perished for it. Our statecraft, our learningDelivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burningWhither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour -Not since her birth has our Earth seen such worth loosed upon her.Nor was their agony brief, or once only imposed on them.The wounded, the war-spent, the sick received no exemption:Being cured they returned and endured and achieved our redemption,Hopeless themselves of relief, till Death, marvelling, closed on them.That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was givenTo corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven -By the heart-shaking jests of Decay where it lolled on the wires -To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes - to be cindered by fires -To be senselessly tossed and retossed in stale mutilationFrom crater to crater. For this we shall take expiation. But who shall return us the children?”

“God help us for we knew the worst too young.”

“Of course the Man was wild too. He was dreadfully wild. He didn't even begin to be tame till he met the Woman, and she told him that she did not like living in his wild ways. She picked out a nice dry Cave, instead of a heap of wet leaves, to lie down in; and she strewed clean sand on the floor; and she lit a nice fire of wood at the back of the Cave; and she hung a dried wild-horse skin, tail down, across the opening of the Cave; and she said, 'Wipe your feet, dear, when you come in, and now we'll keep house.”